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Hey guys, I guess you could say I'm a home boy. I lived in Boston for 54 years and retired from the M.B.T.A. back on April 1st 2004. I moved to Buffalo Missouri where I had my house built while I was still working for the (T). It's a very nice ranch that my girlfriend designed. Anyway my troubles started in the summer of 2007, MOLES are destroying my lawn and they are everywhere it seems. I tried poison and my dog got into it and got very sick so I stoped the use of that. So if you can help a Boston Boy it would be great. Thanks for your time.

David Happeny

PS I watch the show all the time and I know you guys are the best of the experts.........

an old wise man told me to move moles you have to get rid of the food source grubs get rid of grubs you lose the moles you won't kill them but your neighbors will get them haha!!!!!!!!!!
try grubex or like product start soon and probably 2 applications one month apart to get started good luck

Ditto on getting rid of the insect food source.......which is usually grubs.

One way (the fastest) is to apply an insecticide that will penetrate the ground and kill 'em where they live. Grubex is one, but there are others. The important parts here are that you apply it at the specified rate, that it gets watered in promptly (within 6 hours or sooner if possible).....and that you apply it at the appropriate time for your region. If the grubs aren't up near the surface, it won't stand nearly as good of a chance at getting them. But usually if the moles are visibly active, the grubs are there at the surface. Sometimes I've spread the insectcide in the rain to assure that it gets watered in promptly. Just don a raincoat and cover the hopper of the broadcast spreader with a garbage bag so the stuff doesn't get wet and clump up. If waiting for rain isn't in the cards/advisable.....get out the lawn sprinkler. (We retreat about every 5 years to avoid a repopulation)

Another way (if the food source is grubs from Japanese beetles) is by applying milky spore. No insecticide to fret over, but this method takes longer to become effective. It lasts much longer, but is more expensive initially.

If you want to put a stop to the mole's destruction as soon as possible......add a couple Victor mole traps to the counterattack. Even if you should kill the moles food supply immediately....they won't leave for a while and will dig all the more furiously as they search for what they're convinced is still there.

I use the above ground plunger type traps. Locate an active run (probably no problem there, right?).......and then press the run down gently with your foot until it is almost flush with the surface again. (Press down just one width of your foot, not the whole run or a few feet of run) Insert the trap into the ground over the mole run and then run the tines up and down into the ground a couple times. Without removing it from the ground, cock the trap and carefully position it with the trip-plate just touching the squashed run. Have a pointy-shovel or a spade handy if/when you see it's been tripped. That because the times don't always kill the mole and if you just yank the trap outta the ground, the mole may well scurry away down the run to dig another day. So instead, stick the shovel in the ground along side of the trap and heave it and any attached mole out. Bonk on head if necessary. Reset trap (probably in a different place) and get another one.

If your trap isn't tripped within 24 hours.....you've probably either set it in an inactive/abandoned run......or you haven't set the trap quite properly. Moles ususally make two trips per day thru a tunnel/run. Although I have had a lone little bitty mole evade the trap for several days. Not quite big enough to trip it evidently. The run would be pushed up under the trip-plate time after time, but no mole to be found. Got him in the end though. :D

When we bought this place in the spring of '88, it was sooned nicknamed "mole hill". We put chalk marks on the shed out back as we trapped/killed them. IIRC, 23 in two weeks. There were mornings that I went out to check those traps and as I was inserting the spade to toss one, I'd see another run "moving" right beside me. So........I'd grab two more shovels/spades and use those to block off the run both directions and then dug out the "fugitive" before touching the one in the trap. It was crazy, I tell ya. Moles, moles....everywhere. :eek:

PS- Even without any participation from those moles....the grubs will eventually kill your lawn. So traps only is not advisable.

Back on the ranch we had a neighbor that would open up their mounds and then burn sulfur in the hole with a weed torch. That seemed to do the trick, though we never tried it on our property. Weed torches are easy to find, harbor freight has a good one that I reviewed here . I don't know where he purchased the sulfur granules.